John Lasseter of Pixar Animation Studios is pictured at the premiere of the film "The Incredibles" in Hollywood in this October 2004 file photo. The Walt Disney Co. has agreed to acquire Pixar Animation Studios in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion, in an announcement from Disney January 24, 2006. Lasseter, has been named Chief Creative Officer of the animation studio as well as Principal Creative Advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he will provide his expertise in the designing of new attractions for Disney theme parks around the world. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/Files 0

Woody and Buzz Lightyear. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull. The parallels are uncanny.

In buying Pixar Animation Studios last week for $7.4 billion, Walt Disney Co. picked up the dynamic duo of Lasseter and Catmull, a powerful partnership that has thrived for more than two decades and has been the driving force propelling Pixar to infinity and beyond.

Sure, Pixar Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who is also the head of Apple Computer Inc., is widely recognized as the high-tech visionary who pulled off the coup.

But it has largely been Lasseter, the creative spirit behind Pixar, based in Emeryville, and Catmull, Pixar's president and chief technical whiz, who have together led the company to produce six straight blockbusters, including "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles." The films have altogether raked in more than $3.2 billion in ticket sales.

Pixar has flourished not because of the Hawaiian shirt-wearing Lasseter, considered a rock star in the animation industry, or because of Catmull behind the scenes, but because the two, well, had each other.

"Ed and John are the Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth of animation," said Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, in an interview. "They both possess the balance that is needed, John being the creative fountain and Ed being not only the technological genius but a managerial one as well."

Securing the duo was important enough that both their roles were written into the merger contract, along with a note that their loss could break up the deal, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Catmull will become the president of the new Pixar and Disney animation studios, the companies said, and will report to Disney CEO Bob Iger and Cook. Lasseter will become the chief creative officer of the animation studios and principal creative adviser at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he will help design attractions for the theme parks.

The hope, clearly, is that the two will sprinkle their magic onto Disney, which for the past few years has mostly produced lackluster, forgettable animated films such as "Home on the Range" and "Brother Bear."

"There's nothing but good now that can come from this," said Craig Elliott, a visual development artist who is at work on "Enchanted," a Disney animated, live-action film. "We need a creative director that understands story and making great films and that's John Lasseter to me. He is the Walt Disney of today."

If Lasseter is the Walt Disney of today, then Catmull is brother Roy Disney, the steady hand who made it possible for Walt Disney to thrive.

Catmull was the one who first dared to dream big. Though he lacked artistic genius, Catmull had a deep love and appreciation for animation that continued even as he earned a doctorate in engineering from the University of Utah.

"Ed started out wanting to be an animator, too," said Steven Levine, president of the Disney-founded California Institute of the Arts, where Lasseter earned a degree in animation. "He's driven by the same love, even though he's on the technical side."

Wanting to apply his computer skills to animation, he eventually landed at the George Lucas-led Lucasfilm, creator of the "Star Wars" trilogy. He and Alvy Ray Smith, another engineer with a flair for art, set about developing computer animation technology at Lucasfilm and made regular "pilgrimages" to Disney. It was during one of those trips that they first met Lasseter, a young Disney artist at the time who had an interest in technology.

"John was one of the first artists we met who wasn't afraid (of technology)," said Smith, who along with Catmull would later co-found Pixar. (Smith left Pixar in 1991 to start another software company.)

In Lasseter, they found the artistic talent they had been missing, and recruited him to Lucasfilm. Soon thereafter, Lucasfilm decided to spin off the computer division, so Catmull and Smith sought a financier. That turned out to be Jobs, who paid $5 million to Lucasfilm and $5 million to capitalize the new company. They renamed it Pixar, a made-up Spanish verb derived from the word "picture," and housed the company in a building across the street from a Chevron refinery in Richmond.

"Ed shared with me a dream that he'd had since graduate school to make the world's first computer-animated feature film," Jobs said in a conference call with analysts and reporters last week. "It was Ed's dream. And I bought into it both spiritually and financially, and John Lasseter bought into it, too. But it was Ed's dream from the beginning."

The alliance of Catmull and Lasseter set the tone for the fledging company: Instead of a rivalry between art and technology, the two were joined.

"There's this great divide in our world between the artistically creative and the technically creative, who don't understand each other and despise and make fun of each other," Smith said. "The glory of Pixar is that doesn't exist there. Both sides know they can't work without the other."

Both encouraged what has come to be known as Pixar's unique culture, one where employees roller-skate and skateboard through the halls and decorate their offices with toys and more toys. Pixar's strength, as many point out, is not just in Catmull and Lasseter, but their ability to fill the company with additional talent.

Floyd Norman, a story artist who worked under Walt Disney in "Jungle Book," then 40 years later joined Pixar to produce "Toy Story 2," said he felt the same legendary Disney spirit at Pixar.

"It felt like the way Disney used to be, the same culture I had enjoyed so much when I was a kid," Norman said in an interview.

Disney, Norman said, could pinpoint when something in a film didn't feel right. He saw the same thing in Lasseter.

By the end of 1998, Pixar had nearly finished its third computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story 2." It brought back a familiar, beloved cast of characters: Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Potato Head, and introduced new ones, like Jessie the cowgirl.

But Lasseter wasn't satisfied. Calling the team together in January 1999, the same year the film was due, he said, "It's good, but I think we can make it even better."

The decision, backed by Catmull, led to an almost complete overhaul of "Toy Story 2," from Act 1, Scene 1, to the end. Of course, "Toy Story 2" still made it to theaters by the holidays and made $485 million at the box office.

"That's what I loved about Walt Disney and John Lasseter," Norman said. "They go the extra mile, beyond good enough."

Now, Catmull and Lasseter, who will commute between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, will share that same spirit with the Disney animation studios. Lasseter has been given the power to "green light" new feature animation projects, subject to Iger's approval. They will also be part of a committee meeting one full day every other month, when, among other duties, they will make sure that Pixar's individual culture lives on.

"For many of us at Pixar, it was the magic of Disney that influenced us to pursue our dreams of becoming animators, artists, storytellers and filmmakers," Lasseter said in a statement. He and Catmull were not available for an interview.

Of course, it's always been Disney all along for Lasseter, who once worked at Disneyland as a sweeper and on the Jungle Book ride. Even as Jobs wrangled with then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner last year over a new agreement, Lasseter kept a cordial relationship with Disney.

To research this summer's Pixar flick, "Cars," Lasseter, Disney's Cook, and a few Pixar folks flew to Miami to attend a NASCAR race. They hung out in the pit to study the cars, and afterward, enjoyed dinner at Joe's Stone Crab. "Cars," due in June, would have been Pixar's last movie under its contract with Disney. But throughout the weekend, the Disney-Pixar agreement never came up, Cook said.

"We talked about everything," Cook said. "We talked about cars, we talked about the trip that John took down Route 66."

Catmull and Lasseter will join Disney on the same road. Will it lead to happily ever after? Or could it fall apart as Catmull and Lasseter are spread thin, or, as some fear, the Disney and Pixar cultures clash?

"I would hope that the odds are Pixar will change Disney more than vice-versa," said Steve Anker, dean of film and video at the California Institute of Arts. "I think Disney is getting the better part of the deal."